Education the focus in Crist visit

On a day when new poll showed the governor’s race is essentially a dead heat, Democrat Charlie Crist focused on education issues during a visit to Sarasota Wednesday as he sought to gain an advantage over Gov. Rick Scott.

Speaking to a group of school teachers downtown, Crist criticized Scott, a Republican, for cutting the state education budget during his first year in office. Crist also said too much focus is on standardized testing in the classroom and promised to try to repeal at least one of the reforms enacted after he left office in early 2011.

“My opponent cut education funding by $1.3 billion,” Crist told two dozen people at the Selby Public Library.

Crist’s education-themed attacks mirror a new campaign ad he released last Thursday on education issues.

Scott and the Republican Party of Florida have been running ads for a month saying exactly the opposite of Crist’s comments. Scott’s ads say he increased education funding while Crist reduced it by nearly $1.4 billion while he was governor.

Crist was governor from 2007 to 2011. Scott took office in 2011.

State records show both governors reduced education funding during their tenures to deal with the impacts of the Great Recession.

Under Crist, overall education funding fell from $18.7 billion during the 2007-08 school year, to $17.9 billion in the 2009-10 school school year. It climbed back to $18.2 billion in his final year in office, as Crist accepted federal stimulus funding.

When Scott took over in 2011, funding for schools dropped again, this time to $16.6 billion in 2011-12. But since then, as the economy has rebounded, so too has the education budget, which has $18.9 billion in it for 2014-15.

To respond to Crist on Thursday, the Republican Party of Florida issued a statement from state Rep. Doug Holder, R-Osprey, blasting Crist for being an “empty chair Governor” and leaving schools in worse financial shape.

Holder was elected in 2006 and voted for the education budget cuts under both Crist and under Scott.

Crist talked about more than the education budget during his Sarasota visit. The teachers told him of their frustration over how much standardized tests rule the school calendar. Sarasota Military Academy teacher Hellen Harvey said education reforms have been about treating schools like businesses. Accountability, data and testing dominate education now, she said.

“We aren’t making products,” Harvey said. “They are children.”

Though Crist supported many of the education accountability reforms implemented when Gov. Jeb Bush was in office, Crist said he is worried about how much the teachers are having to deal with testing now.

“There’s too much emphasis on testing, rather than learning,” Crist said.

Crist said if he is elected, “we ought to get rid of” the education reforms passed in 2011 that make test scores for students a bigger part of teacher evaluations and can affect whether they get pay raises.

In Crist’s last year in office in 2010, he vetoed those reforms. But in 2011, after he left office, the Republican-led Legislature passed those reforms without opposition from Scott.

Crist was in Sarasota as a new Quinnipiac University poll shows he and Scott are essentially in a dead heat. According to the poll of 1,251 people from July 17 to July 21, 39 percent they would vote for Crist, with Scott getting 37 percent. About 9 percent said they would support Libertarian candidate Adrian Wyllie. The poll has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

Crist told the teachers the numbers are remarkable because Scott’s campaign has spent more than $30 million against him on television ads, yet he still has a lead in the polls.

“To have it the way it is is pretty darn amazing,” Crist said.

Jeremy Wallace

Jeremy Wallace has covered politics for more than 15 years.
He can be reached by email or call (941) 361-4966.
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Last modified: July 24, 2014
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